Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Rice In Mexican Cooking

By Ken Kudra

Rice is the most commonly eaten cereal crop in the world, being the mainstay of the diet in much of east and southeast Asia, the Caribbean and central and South America. Of course, rice is eaten in literally every part of the world, including North America. Rice is grown in the United States and more apropos to this article, Mexico. After corn, rice is the most important grain in Mexican cuisine and there are too many different Mexican rice recipes to list in the space we have here.

This grain is an immigrant to the Americas, having first been cultivated in Asia and brought to Mexico by Spanish and Portuguese explorers and colonists, who began growing the crop in the new world. Rice quickly became an important ingredient in Mexican cooking, with many a traditional Mexican rice recipe having its origin shortly after its introduction to the continent.

Traditional Mexican Rice Recipe

Arroz con pollo is both a classic Mexican rice dish and a classic Mexican chicken dish. From the Spanish for "rice with chicken," this is the Mexican take on this timeless comfort food and it is an incredibly satisfying one. This is one Mexican rice recipe you may want to try making at home - it is a great change of pace from the familiar American version with canned soup.

Arroz con pollo is an excellent example of how recipes, which originated in Spain became Mexican recipes through adaptation to use locally available ingredients as well as to work in flavors and ingredients, which became popular with the European settlers. In the case of this recipe, tomatoes found their way in to the cooking pot, as did the more assertive Mexican oregano as a substitute for the European variety, which was unavailable in the country.

Spanish Cuisine Becomes Mexican In The New World

After the Spanish began to grow rice in Mexico, it quickly became a hit, working its way into dishes, which combined old and new ingredients, with some of the results now known as authentic Mexican rice recipes. One dish, which we think of as Spanish as can be is paella, but a look at the ingredients commonly, used in this dish reveal something very interesting. For example, tomato is a common ingredient; a new world ingredient, which must inevitably have found its way into a pot of rice and seafood long before a cook in Valencia, thought to do the same.

Of course, even Spanish paella happens to have a slight Mexican accent due to the inclusion of tomatoes and quite often, bell peppers - both of which are native to the Americas and were brought back to Europe from the new world! Needless to say, this is also a very popular Mexican rice dish with many regional variations being found throughout Mexico, especially in coastal regions of the country.

Lightly seasoned Mexican rice is another of the better-known Mexican rice recipes. This rice is served as a complement to a wide variety of Mexican dishes, particularly beans. This is a dish, which is quite similar to Spanish rice; and just as with paella, this rice actually contains some new world ingredients.

Rice has become almost as important of a dietary staple in Mexico as it is in much of the world. It may not have been in the Mexican culinary repertoire as long as corn or chilies, but it has found a happy place in this one of a kind cuisine and if you enjoy any of these wonderful Mexican rice recipes, you are certainly glad that it made its way over to the Americas. - 30313

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